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Last year CHIRP Radio had the good fortune to record a live performance session by Chicago band Circuit Des Yeux, led by its principal singer and songwriter Haley Fohr. This year Fohr is releasing a new album within which she’s create and intriguing persona. Through music, Jackie Lynn tells the story of a woman from Tennessee who moves to Chicago then mysteriously disappears, leaving behind only the songs on the record. Members of Bitchin’ Bajas help provide the sonic backdrop for listeners to enjoy and contemplate. Thrill Jockey will release the album in June, but you can hear tracks from it now in rotation and by request on CHIRP Radio.
One of the great errors perpetrated by Ken Burns’ (in)famous PBS Jazz series lies in how it dissed the future. According to the documentary’s small group of talking heads assembled to explain to the audience what’s relevant and what isn’t, all the great, important Jazz happened between 1920 (the height of Louis Armstrong) and 1960 (the height of Miles Davis). The stuff that happened later, the stuff that doesn’t sound like Satchmo and goes off on as-yet uncharted musical adventures, is just so much noise.
This attitude has permeated through to the casual music fan to the point where Jazz is considered a dead language. Which is a shame, because the art form continues to thrive in the 21st century, especially in Chicago, home of a huge amount of gifted musicians fiercely expressing themselves. One of the most recent examples is the Dave McDonnell group, featuring Midwestern Jazz heavyweights Jason Adasiewicz on vibraphone, Joshua Abrams (of Natural Information Society) on bass, and Quin Kirchner (of Wild Belle and NOMO) on drums. With McDonnell’s sax leading the way, the music is very much of the here and now – if it doesn’t sound like the past, that’s very much the point.
Tracks from The Dave McDonnell Group’s new album Eidetic, released on Whistler Records, are now playing in rotation and by request on CHIRP Radio.
Are You Serious is the 13th studio album from Andrew Bird, not counting EPs, live records, numerous guest appearances, and his stint with Squirrel Nut Zippers. Dude is busy, and continues to be busy writing and performing music for records and the TV (He wrote music for The Muppets and the score for the FX cult hit Baskets). It seems too early to call Bird a Chicago institution since that word implies a person who is nearing the end of a career, while he seems to have a long musical road ahead of him. Suffice to say, this is the latest chapter in a prolific career that continues to produce some of the most skillfully beautiful Pop music that will come through your speakers. Songs from the new album are available in rotation and by request on CHIRP Radio.
Chicago Footwork pioneer DJ Rashad left us much too early. Growing up in a community that continues to face Herculean challenges, he was a victim of overdose at the age of 34. But his influence continues to be felt by fans and collaborators. Teklife, the crew of artists and dancers Rashad helped found, has just released Afterlife, a collection of tracks that feature his collaboration with different musicians and of the sound he helped create, a world of digital soundscapes frenzied and lightning-staccato one moment and languidly surreal the next, the sound of a community on the edge that cannot be stopped from making art. Tracks from this compilation are now being played in rotatio and by request at CHIRP Radio.org.
It's always nice to get in on the ground floor of listening to a new band that's just starting out. This is the case with Chicago band Impulsive Hearts, originally a solo project of Danielle Sines that has built itself into a trio. The band wraps their romantic musings in a haze of guitar noise and distortion with a driving beat. It's a formula of Pop-Punk melancholy that can help point the way from Winter to Summer. Tracks from the debut EP from the band in its current form, Sorry in the Summer, are available for listening in rotation and by request on CHIRP Radio.